


Three New Messages

by earlgreytea68



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>If you were dying, if you'd been murdered -- in your very last seconds, what would you say?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Три новых сообщения](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506244) by [Bothersome_Arya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bothersome_Arya/pseuds/Bothersome_Arya)



> Thank you to arctacuda for the beta and for welovethebeekeeper for the Britishising!
> 
> I know that you are all still waiting patiently for the Lettersverse fic and that you must think by now that I've made it up because this still isn't it. But this was the last little ficlet-ish I had already written and not posted, and the Lettersverse fic is long, so I thought I'd get this one out of the way first. AND THEN LETTERSVERSE, I SO VERY MUCH PROMISE, I SWEAR.

Sherlock had asked him once what his last thought would be if he thought he was about to die. They had known each other only a few hours, and John thought he should have seen immediately what sort of relationship they were going to have, if he was already being asked such a personal question at that point. At the time, he had had only one notable near-death experience, so he had answered based on that. 

Standing in Baskerville, trapped in a dark laboratory, with a gigantic, murderous hound breathing down his neck, John was thinking that he was getting tired of facing down his death, that he was getting tired of what his last thoughts tended to be when he thought he was about to die. Because these days his last thought was always _Sherlock_.

It was no different this time, standing in the laboratory, dialing Sherlock’s mobile desperately. His last thought was always something about Sherlock. _Where is Sherlock?_ Or _Get in touch with Sherlock._ Sherlock wasn’t answering, and John hung up when he got to his voicemail and, unable to think of anything else to do, dialed him again. “Don’t be ridiculous, pick up,” he muttered, frantically, but the phone rolled over to voicemail, Sherlock’s velvet voice brusquely telling him to leave a _brief_ message and to be quick and not be boring about it. John snapped into it, “Where the hell are you? Answer. Your. Bloody. Phone.” Then he ended the phone call and looked around the laboratory and considered his options. He could hear the hound stalking him, growling in the darkness, its breath heaving in snorts. Claws clicking across the floor, a snarl rising up. John tried to track it, eyes straining against the darkness, clamping a hand over his mouth to try to keep his own breaths as quiet as possible. When the claws stopped moving, John decided he had to take a chance. He couldn’t just wait there, a sitting duck. 

He bolted for one of the empty cages he’d seen, tumbling into it and pulling the door closed behind him, the sheet falling down to hide him. He pressed up against the bars, as far away from where he had last heard the hound as he could get, and dialed Sherlock’s mobile again. Sherlock was his only shot of getting out of here alive. Sherlock _had_ to answer, he just had to. 

Voicemail again. John squeezed his eyes shut against the rising of his panic. “I am locked in the first lab we saw, with the hound,” he whispered, hoping the hound wouldn’t hear him. It was a risk to speak but he needed to get this out; it was his only chance. “You have got to get me out of here.” 

John ended the call. There was another snarl from the hound, claws clicking across the tile floor again. John clapped his hand over his mouth again, but it was too late, he knew it was too late. He watched the shadow of the hound approaching. It was moving slowly and purposefully, as if it knew that the game was up and it was going to relish moving in for the kill. The cage would delay the inevitable a bit, but the hound had got out of its own cage, so it would find a way to get into John’s. He was going to be bloody killed by a gigantic hound in a secret government laboratory. 

John’s finger pressed his first speed dial again. He put the mobile to his ear. Outside the cage the hound sidled closer, snuffling as it followed John’s smell, as it pinpointed which cage was his. John watched the outline of its approach through the sheet. 

_Don’t be boring_ , said Sherlock’s voice, and there was the beep of his voicemail, and John saw the hound’s muzzle press between the bars of his cage. John squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting the last thing he saw to be the hound moving in to rip his throat out. He stopped trying to hide his breaths, tearing at oxygen, and he heard his voice say, completely of its own accord, “Sherlock. Oh, God, I should have told you this so much sooner. I’m so sorry to say it like this, but this hound is going to kill me and all I can think is that I should have told you that I love you. I need to make sure you know that. I loved you. I was so in love with you. I think I fell for you the moment you were so bloody smug at St. Bart’s, the day we met, I really think I loved you from that moment and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you it when I was still alive. I’m sorry.” John listened to the hound, its claws scraping up against the bars now. It was only a matter of time before the cage gave way, bent inward, gave the creature access. “I’m so sorry,” John said again, and then lowered the phone. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes because he couldn’t resist the urge—

Light flooded the laboratory. The sheet fell away from the cage, and on the other side of it was Sherlock, peering in at him with concern. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, opening the cage door and leaning forward to put a hand on John’s shoulder. “John…”

John, disoriented, shook him off and tried to breathe. He was still alive. How the hell was he still alive? “Jesus Christ,” he managed, dazedly. He pulled himself up, staggered out of the cage, stuffing his mobile into his pocket. “It was the hound, Sherlock. It was here. I swear it, Sherlock. It must…” John looked around him. The brightly illuminated laboratory was completely devoid of any enormous dog. “It must…” John began again, helplessly. What the lab contained was a Sherlock, and John turned toward him. “Did…did…did you see it? You _must_ have.”

Sherlock reached for him, almost as if he were going to draw him in for a comforting cuddle, which John decidedly wasn’t in the mood for because his panic was still too high. He was supposed to be _dead_. 

“It’s all right,” Sherlock said, speaking as if John were a skittish horse who might bolt. “It’s okay now.”

“ _No, it’s not!_ ” John shouted at him. “ _It’s not okay!_ I saw it! I was wrong!” John tried to take deep breaths, recognizing vaguely that that would help with his high-running panic. 

Sherlock, infuriatingly, _shrugged_. Actually sodding _shrugged_. “Well,” he said, unconcerned, “let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“What?” said John, in disbelief.

“What did you see?” Sherlock asked him. 

John felt unpleasantly like one of their clients, interrogated by the great detective, story picked apart as if he’d made the whole thing up, which he definitely hadn’t. He could still hear the rumbly growls, still feel the beast’s hot breath coming toward him as it scrabbled to gain access to his cage. “I told you,” he answered. “I saw the hound.”

“Huge?” guessed Sherlock. “Red eyes?”

“Yes,” John affirmed, unsure why he needed to give a physical description. Sherlock knew what the hound looked like, he’d seen it himself. 

“Glowing?” said Sherlock. 

“Yeah.”

“No,” Sherlock replied. 

John blinked. “What?”

“I made up the bit about glowing.” Sherlock actually looked _pleased_ with himself. “You saw what you expected to see because I _told_ you. You have been drugged. We have _all_ been drugged.”

“Drugged?” echoed John. He couldn’t comprehend this. His brain was trying to process too much at once. 

“Can you walk?” asked Sherlock, maddeningly calm. 

“Of course I can walk,” retorted John, vaguely offended, as offended as he could make himself be. 

Sherlock turned away from him, walking briskly out of the laboratory. “Come on, then,” he commanded, easily. “It’s time to lay this ghost.”

***

As ridiculous as it sounded, and John knew it sounded ridiculous, he forgot entirely about his frantic voicemail to Sherlock. He sat trying to recover from the whole experience, too shaky to do much, still vaguely nauseated from the after-effects of the adrenaline. Dr. Stapleton said he looked peaky, and John was feeling peaky and trying to ignore it. And they were busy solving a murder and trying to keep Henry from killing himself and getting drugged _again_ and avoiding minefields, and John didn’t even try to sleep. None of them did. Lestrade grabbed a bottle of scotch from the bar and brought it up to Sherlock’s room. John sprawled on Sherlock’s bed, drinking, while Lestrade sat on the floor and asked Sherlock questions about the case and Sherlock paced and answered impatiently. 

John wasn’t trying to sleep, but he fell asleep anyway out of sheer exhaustion, and in his dreams there was a gigantic hound, red eyes glowing, directly on top of him, foul breath in his face, pinning him down, its jaws leaned down to close around John’s throat. John could feel the sharp sting of its teeth and clawed desperately to push it away, away, even as he felt his skin break, felt the heat of his jugular, so close—

“Wake up,” Sherlock said, very harshly, and pinned John’s scrabbling hands to the bed. 

John blinked up at him, gasping and drenched in sweat. Sherlock was frowning darkly. He’d lit a lamp, so the room was bright, but it was clearly not yet morning, dawn only hinted at from the window. 

“Sorry,” said Sherlock, his voice gentler. “I needed to wake you up; I had to shout at you.”

“’S fine,” John managed. 

“You were having a nightmare. Do you remember what it was about?” Sherlock looked like he thought it might be some sort of deep Freudian puzzle for him to solve. 

“Of course I bloody remember what it was about,” John snapped with as much energy as he could muster. “It was about a gigantic hound attacking me.”

Sherlock looked down at him, pursed and unpursed his lips, and John closed his eyes, exhausted. “Where’s Lestrade?” he asked. 

“Went to his room. You’d fallen asleep. I thought it best not to disturb you.”

John sat up, scrubbing at his eyes. “I should go.”

“I really think you should stay,” said Sherlock. 

“Where will you sleep?”

“I’m not tired. John, I’m sorry.”

“About what?” John opened his eyes, looked at him wearily. 

Sherlock hesitated, then said, “Nothing, just…sorry. About the nightmare. I didn’t know… I didn’t realize…that the hound had affected you that much.”

John leaned back against the wall. “It was apparently a pretty damn good drug,” he said, sardonically. “Now I know why you were having a meltdown the other night.”

Sherlock picked up his wrist, and John knew he was feeling his pulse, which was thrumming along rapidly. “Deep breath,” Sherlock murmured. “Take a deep breath.”

John complied, closing his eyes to focus on it, because he knew Sherlock was right. 

“You’re susceptible to nightmares,” Sherlock was saying. His voice was muted, musing, as if he were just piecing it together. “You have them fairly frequently.”

John opened his eyes again. “How do you know that?”

“You’re not quiet, and I don’t sleep much. I stand outside your bedroom and I debate whether or not I should wake you up.”

“Why don’t you wake me up?” John was curious. 

“Because what would I do after that? What could I say to make it better?” Sherlock looked honestly troubled by the question. 

“You would have made it better by waking me up.”

“Do you want me to start waking you up?”

“I don’t know,” John said, honestly. “Let’s talk about this when it’s not the middle of the night and I’m not, you know, slightly panicked.”

Sherlock nodded once, curtly, and dropped John’s wrist. John had forgotten he’d been holding it in the first place. 

“You don’t get nightmares?” John asked, extrapolating from Sherlock’s interest in the topic. 

“No. I don’t dream, generally. There must be so much going on under the surface in this brain of yours.” Thoughtfully, Sherlock pressed a finger against the center of John’s forehead, briefly, before withdrawing it. 

“Yes, and all of your brain activity takes place right on the surface,” said John. 

Sherlock smiled briefly and then straightened. “You’re tired. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you if you have another nightmare.”

“You should get some sleep,” John told him. 

“I’m not tired.” Sherlock settled in the chair he’d pulled over to look out the window, steepling his fingers together. 

John didn’t move for a second, and then he stretched out on Sherlock’s bed again and fell asleep watching his profile against the lightening sky. 

***

In the middle of everything else, John didn’t think about the voicemail until they were on the train back to London and Sherlock took out his phone. 

John had been in the middle of a mild sulk, aware now that Sherlock’s apology for last night’s nightmare had stemmed from the guilt of having drugged him in the first place. He’d been pouting in the direction of the window and thinking that he was starting to pick up too many of Sherlock’s terrible habits, when Sherlock took out his phone and said, in distaste, “Three voicemails.”

John started, the memory of his voicemail slamming into him, and how had he _forgotten_ about that? He turned away from the window and stared dumbfounded at Sherlock, who was frowning down at his phone, clearly trying to decide whether or not to listen to his voicemails. This was a disaster, thought John. He had to stop Sherlock from listening to the voicemail. It wasn’t that it wasn’t _true_ , it was just that, well, he had never thought it was an especially good idea to _say_ it. He felt like an idiot. He was a heterosexual male, he couldn’t possibly be in love with his flatmate, even if, facing death, his life stripped back to the bare undeniability of it, it was clear that he _was_. And what would Sherlock make of it, anyway? Sherlock didn’t feel things that way. Sherlock might be mildly curious, a bit bemused. He would probably turn the phrase around on his tongue. _In love with me? Really? What does that_ mean _?_ As if it were a fascinating experiment for him. Saying _I love you_ always left you open and vulnerable. Saying _I love you_ to Sherlock Holmes would be so much worse. To be that open and vulnerable to Sherlock Holmes…

“Those are me.” It came out sounding high-pitched and panicked, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Those are me.” There. Much more normal sounding.

Sherlock looked at him, and then deduced, “Ah. From Baskerville.”

“Yes. You weren’t picking up your phone.”

“Yes. Well. It was all part of the experiment.” Sherlock slid his mobile back into his pocket. 

“Aren’t you going to erase them?” John asked. 

“Yes, probably. Eventually. I can’t be bothered to listen to them now.” Sherlock waved a negligent hand. 

John licked his lips and tried not to look nervous or eager. “I can erase them for you if you want.”

Sherlock’s gaze was narrow. “What? Why?”

John shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “No reason. Just…sitting here, nothing to do. I may as well be of some help.”

Sherlock regarded him for a minute and then shrugged. “I’ll erase them later,” he said, and settled deeper into the train seat, deeper into his coat. 

John watched as Sherlock appeared to fall asleep, but John didn’t trust him. He had to get the phone away from him. That was easily done. Sherlock frequently left his phone all over the flat, and John knew all of its passwords. If he just didn’t display any undue interest in the messages, Sherlock would ignore them the way he always did, and John could simply delete all of them when he managed to snag Sherlock’s phone. 

Piece of cake.

***

John was the worst liar on the entire planet. At least when it came to lying to Sherlock. John was a cool liar when it counted, when the pressure was on and they were trying not to get thrown out of Baskerville, for example. Then John could lie with the best of them. John pulling rank on that irritating corporal had been a thing of such profound beauty that Sherlock had strongly considered pushing John back against their Land Rover and snogging him thoroughly. But that would not only have blown their cover but have hopelessly startled John, so Sherlock hadn’t done it. 

That aside, John was a terrible liar. And it was clear that, whatever was in the three voicemails on Sherlock’s mobile, he was desperate that Sherlock not listen to them, which meant that Sherlock was desperate to listen to them. John obviously wasn’t going to leave Sherlock alone until Sherlock left the phone alone, and Sherlock didn’t want to be in a standoff over who was going to go to bed first—John _always_ went to bed first, so that was the world’s most ridiculous standoff—so, sitting in 221B, Sherlock abruptly leaned away from his laptop and pulled out his mobile and pressed his “Voicemail” number. 

“What are you doing?” John asked, instantly, from where he’d been pretending to be reading a book in his armchair. 

“Phoning Lestrade,” Sherlock replied, entering his voicemail password smoothly. 

“Don’t you have Lestrade on speed dial?” John asked, suspiciously, watching how many numbers Sherlock was pressing. 

“That was before he showed up at Baskerville just to baby-sit me,” said Sherlock, and, password entered, lifted the mobile to his ear. Over the computerized voice telling him he had three new messages, Sherlock said, “Lestrade. About this story of the rash of suicides in this town in Wales, doesn’t it strike you as similar to the cabbie case?” The computerized voice finished, and John’s first message played. _Where the hell are you? Answer. Your. Bloody. Phone._ Well, thought Sherlock, nothing interesting about that message. John left him messages along those lines fairly often. 

“Hold on a second, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, smoothly, as the computerized voice came back, “I’ve another call coming in.” Sherlock carefully pressed the command for _Keep as new_ then put the phone back to his ear. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said. John’s second message played in his ear. _I am locked in the first lab we saw, with the hound. You have got to get me out of here._ It was nothing more than a whisper, softer even than the hiss of the first message, but there was still nothing especially noteworthy about it. John sounded frantic in it, but then, John had _been_ frantic, and that was something Sherlock had already seen. “I’m sorry,” said Sherlock, firmly, “but you must have the wrong number.” He pressed _Keep as new_ and said into his phone, “Lestrade? Bloody idiot on the other line babbling nonsense. Now what were you saying?”

_Sherlock_ , said John’s voice on the third voicemail. _Oh, God, I should have told you this so much sooner. I’m so sorry to say it like this, but this hound is going to kill me and all I can think is that I should have told you that I love you._ Sherlock froze, his eyes flying up and meeting John’s, whose gaze had not left Sherlock the entire time. Sherlock remembered that he was supposed to be speaking to Lestrade, and he rolled his eyes the way he would have if Lestrade had been on the other end, but he was really listening intently to John’s message. _I need to make sure you know that. I loved you. I was so in love with you. I think I fell for you the moment you were so bloody smug at St. Bart’s, the day we met, I really think I loved you from that moment and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you it when I was still alive. I’m sorry._ There was a pause. Then, _I’m so sorry._ There was a lengthy, staticky beat at the end of the message, and that was it. 

Sherlock didn’t want to hit _Keep as new_. He wanted to hit _Keep forever_. He cleared his throat and managed, “I agree, Lestrade, excellent idea.” He hit _Keep as new_ , ended the call, and lowered his phone. He stared at John, who stared back. 

“Well?” said John. 

What had been his cover story for listening to the messages? He felt like he couldn’t remember. “Lestrade’s going to send me the files,” he said, vaguely. “So I can look them over.” Sherlock forced himself to put the mobile on the desk. He had to leave it behind, with its _3 New Messages_ message still intact. He knew he had to leave it behind. He knew John had to be given the opportunity to delete the messages, but oh, how he didn’t want to. Oh, how he wanted to listen to the last one on an endless loop for possibly the rest of his life. _I love you_ , said John’s voice, thick with sincerity. Not just panic, John had _meant_ that. 

“I…” said Sherlock, staring at John, and he knew he was giving it all away, he had to be, but he couldn’t help it. “I’m going to go to bed,” he said, blurrily. He had to. He had to get away and _process_ this. 

John blinked. “Really? You are?”

“I haven’t slept,” Sherlock reminded him, as he stood. He left the mobile on the desk and staggered to his room without saying another word. And then he collapsed onto his bed.


	2. Chapter 2

John was dead. 

Sherlock was standing over his dead body—no, kneeling over his dead body—no, it was unclear, it seemed like his perception kept changing. All that mattered was that John was dead. He had been mauled viciously by something. His eyes stared heavenward, seeing nothing. His throat was a gaping hole. Blood was everywhere, everywhere Sherlock looked, oozing all around him, and there, lying at John’s feet, was his heart. It was still beating. If Sherlock could get John’s heart back into John’s chest cavity he could save him. John would come back to life. Everything would be okay. 

Sherlock snatched at the heart. It was warm, soft and hard all at once, and it beat doubly at him, the unmistakable rhythm of a heartbeat. Sherlock cradled it carefully, John Watson’s heart, the most precious thing in the universe. John’s chest had been torn into ribbons, his ribcage a demolished mess, and Sherlock was able to place the heart within it. But as soon as he settled it into place, it disappeared, back to its position by John’s feet. 

It wouldn’t stay put. Again and again Sherlock seized it up, thrust it into John’s chest, and again and again it vanished. He ceased being gentle, gritting his teeth, driving it into John’s chest, pushing hard, hard, hard—

Sherlock woke up with a gasp, his eyes flying open. John was leaning over him, eyebrows knitted together in concern. 

“John,” Sherlock managed. 

“Yeah,” he answered. “Are you—” 

Sherlock sat up, his hands seeking John’s chest. It was intact, perfectly fine, comfortingly solid. He pressed his palms against him, spanned his ribcage, felt his heart thud reassuringly. 

“What are you—” John began, sounding confused. 

“Shh,” Sherlock said, and slid his hands up to close them gently around John’s throat. Not ravaged. Perfectly fine. “You’re okay,” Sherlock breathed, weak with relief, _sick_ with relief, dropping his hands. 

“Yes. I’m fine. Look, whatever it was, it was just a bad dream, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stared at him. “I don’t…” He found he’d run out of breath, started again. “I don’t get bad dreams.”

John smiled a bit, soft and fond. “Are you thirsty?” he said. “Let me get you a glass of water.” John stood from the bed, walked into the bathroom. 

Sherlock wanted to call him back, tell him that even though, now that John mentioned it, he was dying of thirst, he still couldn’t bear to let John out of his sight. He didn’t call him back, though. He sat frozen in the bed, still trying to catch his breath and calm his racing pulse, because that had been _so real. So. Real._

He hadn’t intended to fall asleep. He had intended to determine what he should do in response to John’s message. John’s message, which he had supposedly not heard. What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to say, _I’m not entirely sure what it means to be in love with someone, but, to the best of my knowledge, I suspect I feel the same for you_? And then what would happen? What _should_ happen? It was all inconceivable to him. And John had never wanted him to hear it. John didn’t want him to know. Why didn’t John want him to know? Was he ashamed of it? Did he think he might eventually change his mind about it? 

John reappeared with a glass of water. Sherlock blinked at it before recognizing what it was and reaching for it automatically. 

“Hey,” said John, softly, and did something Sherlock would never have expected, which was to brush his sweat-dampened fringe off his forehead for him. “It’s okay, right? You’re okay.”

Sherlock’s eyes had closed of their own volition at John’s touch. Now he shook his head slightly and said, “It wasn’t me…”

“I’m fine, too.” John’s voice was firm and practical. “I am absolutely fine.” He presented Sherlock with his wrist. “Take my pulse.”

Sherlock looked at the proffered wrist then shook his hand. “No,” he said. “I can see that you’re fine.” He was trying to convince himself of it, because it was ridiculous, it had clearly been a _dream_ , a nightmare, and nightmares weren’t real. He was behaving like an idiot. He took a shaky sip of water. 

“Do you feel better?” asked John. 

“I’m fine,” Sherlock answered, automatically. 

“Ah. Good, then.” John’s voice was sardonic. John never believed him when he said he was fine. “What was it about? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Is that what you’re supposed to do?” asked Sherlock, dully. He had no acquaintance with nightmares. 

“If you want to.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right. Fine. Do you want to try going back to sleep?”

Sherlock regarded him. He wanted to say, _Do you still love me? Do you still mean that voicemail? What can we do about this? How can we stop making me feel like everything I want to say to you is absolutely choking me?_ “Is it like that for you all the time?” he asked instead. “Do you close your eyes and…that? How do you ever sleep?”

John smiled, sad and dry. “Necessity.”

Sherlock wanted to say, _Oh, John_. Sherlock wanted to draw him close. Sherlock wanted to strip him of every nightmare he’d ever had, replace them with the wonderful things John loved, perfectly brewed cups of tea and well-played rugby matches and horrible jumpers. And _Sherlock_. Sherlock wanted to occupy all the crevices of John’s mind where the nightmares lurked. If John was going to dream, he should dream only of Sherlock. 

He must have been silent a long time, because John spoke again eventually. “They’ve been better. They’ve been much better. Since…” John made an indeterminate gesture. Sherlock understood it. _Since Sherlock_. The nightmares had been better since John had met him. 

Sherlock thought of John getting up and leaving the room, turning off the light. Sherlock thought of lying in the darkness without him. Sherlock thought of John’s heart, beating outside of its body while John lay lifeless, torn apart in front of him. He could find an experiment, play the violin, but he didn’t want to be without John. If he was without him he would be unable to ignore the images in his head, the blood oozing, the unseeing eyes. “I’m not fine,” Sherlock heard himself say, in a quick gulp, before he could entirely think it through. 

John’s expression was soft and affectionate. “I know you’re not.”

Sherlock wanted to say, _You love me. I know you love me. Just say it so I can say it back. I want to say it out loud, even if I only say it once, I want to_. “Did it hurt? When you were shot?” he heard himself saying. God, why didn’t he start thinking before opening his mouth? He was an idiot, idiot, _idiot_. 

“Have you ever been shot?” John responded. He didn’t seem offended by the question. 

Sherlock shook his head. 

“It did and it didn’t,” John answered. 

“Were you scared?”

John took a deep breath then stood, and Sherlock thought he’d pushed it too far. “Lie down,” John said, placing Sherlock’s water on his nightstand. 

Sherlock, disappointed, obeyed. 

To his surprise, John walked around the other side of the bed and sprawled out next to him. Sherlock stared across at him, lying on his bed, just a few inches between them. Sherlock swallowed thickly and thought, _This is what actual sexual desire feels like. It feels like this_. It was not exactly an enjoyable feeling, Sherlock thought, but it didn’t matter, he wanted to wallow in it. It felt terrible, restless and frustrating and edgy, it was the most delightful thing he’d ever experienced. 

“I was terrified,” John said, from a few inches away. “Funny, I was in a war zone, and yet I never thought I’d be shot. Never thought about it. I think about it more here in London with you than I ever thought about it there. Maybe that was the only way I could be a soldier, by not thinking about it.”

“You didn’t want to die,” Sherlock concluded. 

“No. Not then.”

“You went to a war zone; it increased your chances considerably. You’re a talented surgeon. You didn’t need to be an army doctor.”

“I didn’t want to die. I wanted to help people. And, as you say about me, I’m all about Queen and country.”

“When did you want to die?” asked Sherlock. 

“What?”

“You said you didn’t want to die _then_. When did you want to die?”

John was silent for a long moment. “Before I met you,” he answered, finally. 

“Did you ever try?”

“Try killing myself? No. I’m too stubborn for that. Actually, I don’t think I wanted to die. I think I just didn’t want to _live_.”

“Because everything was so unbearably boring,” Sherlock guessed. 

“Because I hadn’t met _you_ yet,” John rejoined. 

Sherlock turned this over in his head then said, “I tried. Before I met you.”

“Tried to kill yourself?”

“Not seriously, not… If I’d wanted to succeed I would have succeeded. I know how to kill someone, John. I’ve thought about it a great deal. The method of death one could choose for oneself, if one could. Nothing appealed to me. I think it was like you say. I didn’t really want to _die_ , but I didn’t want to live, either. So I…” Sherlock cleared his throat. He’d never told anyone this before, not so bluntly, and he wanted to close his eyes against John’s unwavering gaze but he also felt like the open acceptance in John’s eyes was the only thing keeping him going. “Sometimes there was work. Something interesting. A puzzle to look at, a challenge to overcome. But usually there was nothing. Usually there was… But there were drugs. There was… Have you ever taken any drugs?”

“Not the sort you’re talking about.”

“It’s like…it’s like dancing on a knife’s edge. I didn’t want to die, John. I wanted to come just close enough that I could feel death next to me, cold, reaching for me, look into its eyes…and escape. Your brush with death terrified you, and mine _exhilarated_ me. It was all I wanted to do, press and press and press and press. How could I lose? Me? Sherlock Holmes? Lose? Not even death could get the best of me.”

John was silent for a long moment. “Why did you stop?” 

Sherlock considered. “I think because eventually it became more of a challenge for me to survive without the drugs. That was all I really wanted, anyway, not to be bored. So one day I thought, You know what? Everyone is telling you that you’re addicted to these drugs, but you can stop anytime you want. Like today. And that was the first day, and then there was a second day, and _that_ was more like brushes with death, those days. But it was a challenge. I needed to _think_ to accomplish it. It wasn’t easy, and it definitely wasn’t dull. And I thought eventually it would get dull, and I wondered what I would do then, but it never has. Every single bloody day there was a moment when I would _ache_ for it.”

“Was?” echoed John, softly. 

“Well, I think about it less now that there’s you,” Sherlock admitted. 

“I’m so glad you didn’t kill yourself,” John said, thickly, after a long moment. 

Sherlock smiled at him. Odd to smile when what he felt like doing was crying. “I’m so glad you didn’t die.”

“Do you believe in God?” John asked. 

“No,” Sherlock answered. “Do you?”

“Sometimes.” John’s look was reflective and quiet. “Sometimes very, very much. You should sleep, Sherlock. You need it.”

“Will you stay?” There was no way Sherlock was closing his eyes if there was a possibility John would leave the immediate vicinity where Sherlock could keep him safe from any sudden attack. 

“All night. I’m fine, Sherlock. I’m absolutely fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“And you’ll stay all night,” Sherlock confirmed. 

“I’ll stay all night. Go to sleep, Sherlock. Close your eyes.”

“If I have any more nightmares—” 

“I’ll wake you right away. And you’ll do the same for me?”

Sherlock nodded. 

“Deal,” said John, and settled more heavily into his pillow. “Close your eyes, Sherlock,” he said again. 

And even though Sherlock wanted to stay up all night admiring John, he wanted to please John, too. So he closed his eyes and succeeded in falling asleep.

***

The symbolism of his nightmare was disappointingly commonplace. His best friend had told him he loved him. He had, immediately thereafter, had a dream in which he was in charge of said best friend’s heart. And did a terrible job of being in charge of it, frankly. That wasn’t even really _symbolism_ , that was just… _truth_ , he supposed. More than being the sort of person who now had nightmares, Sherlock hated being the sort of person who had _unimaginative_ nightmares. 

“You can’t just stop sleeping, you know,” John told him. 

Sherlock ignored him. “What are your nightmares about?”

“Unpleasant things,” John answered. 

Sherlock frowned. “Are they symbolic? Or are they just slices of your life?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Do the things in them stand for other things? Or did you really dream about a gigantic hound that night?”

“Ah. You mean, in this case, is a cigar really just a cigar?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sherlock, impatiently. 

“Of course you don’t,” sighed John.

“I’m just asking if they could be _real_.”

“Of course they could be real. That’s what makes them nightmares. If they didn’t feel like they couldn’t be real, they wouldn’t be so upsetting.”

That gave Sherlock pause. He steepled his fingers together and looked back into the fireplace, thinking that over. 

“I’m serious, Sherlock. You have to go to sleep sometime. You can’t just…not sleep.”

“I don’t need as much sleep as you do,” said Sherlock, dismissively. 

“Yes, you do. You’re a human being, and you need sleep.”

Sherlock watched the fire. If he watched the fire for long enough, John would sigh and give up and go off to do something else. Sherlock had learned that trick early on. 

“The nightmare about the hound was really about the hound. I dreamed I was being attacked by a hound. When I dream about being shot, I’m literally being shot.”

Sherlock looked at him, a bit surprised, because he hadn’t actually expected John to answer the question. 

“What was your nightmare about?” John asked, fixing him with a level gaze. 

Sherlock blinked his gaze back into the fire. He was silent for long enough that John sighed and gave up and went off and did something else. 

***

The opening of his bedroom door woke him, and John blinked toward the feeble light spilling in from the hallway, at the silhouette in the doorway. 

“Sherlock?” he guessed, because who else would it be?

Sherlock took a step into the room, not answering. 

John tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s up? Did Lestrade ring?”

“Can I just…” said Sherlock, and suddenly was kneeling on the bed, hands stacked over John’s heart. 

John half-sat up in surprise. “What—” 

“Do you know what your heart looks like?” Sherlock asked him. “It’s so unbelievably small and fragile. And it beats without you. It’s the last part of you to die.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” John asked. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but Sherlock was trembling, fine tremors running through his body, his hands vibrating ever so slightly against John’s chest. 

“I dream about you,” Sherlock said, in a rush. 

For a moment, John’s brain, sluggish with sleep, wanted to ask, _What kind of dreams?_ before it occurred to him that Sherlock didn’t dream, or not usually. He had nightmares. 

“That’s what the nightmare was about. This one was the same thing. You’re dead, you’re… But your heart is there and it’s beating and if I could just get it back in your body, I could save you, I know I could, but I _can’t_ , every time I try it vanishes and I have to find it all over again, and this time I pushed, so hard, and your heart in my hands it—” 

“Sherlock,” John interrupted him, instinctively placing a hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, his thumb rubbing a comforting circle behind Sherlock’s ear. “It’s a nightmare. It’s not an omen or a premonition or anything like that. It’s not real life. It’s not going to happen. It’s just a nightmare.”

“I _know_ that.” Sherlock sounded annoyed. “It doesn’t make it less real. When I wake up my pulse is accelerated, you know. It’s like I’ve actually lived what I’m dreaming.”

“That’s what makes nightmares so brutal,” said John. 

Sherlock didn’t reply. He took a deep breath. His hands were no longer on John’s chest, were actually curled loosely into John’s T-shirt. John kept his hand in its caress on Sherlock’s neck and said, “Is that really what your subconscious is worrying about? Losing me?”

“Of _course_ ,” answered Sherlock, as if that should have been obvious. “What could be worse than that?”

John stared at him, at what he could make out of his features in the darkness. “Sherlock,” he began, slowly. 

“Don’t tell me not to worry about it. Don’t say something ridiculous like you’ll never leave me. You can’t possibly promise that. You don’t _know_ that. You _can’t_ know that. It seems to me eminently plausible that someday I’ll be standing over your body. So don’t tell me it’s just a nightmare, that it can’t happen, because it _can_ , that’s the problem with it. With your heart in my hands, my God, I already _have_ your heart in my hands, and I am clearly terrible at it. Tonight I managed to smash it to pieces because I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know how to handle a _heart_ —” 

“Sherlock,” John cut him off, sharply. 

Sherlock seemed to swallow his words. He practically radiated guilt in the confines of the room. 

“You listened to my voicemail,” John realized. 

“No,” answered Sherlock, carefully. 

“Oh my God.” John dropped his hand from Sherlock’s neck. “Don’t _lie_ to me about it.”

“John, I had to. I had to know what you were so desperate for me not to hear.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“You listened to it and did nothing?”

“What could I do?” John could hear the frown in Sherlock’s voice. “I wasn’t supposed to have heard it.”

“You heard that and just went on with life as usual?”

“No,” retorted Sherlock. “I heard it and started having nightmares about having your heart in my hands and _losing_ you.”

“You should have said something.”

“Said _what_? What could I say? You were the one who didn’t want me to know, who didn’t want to say anything. Apparently the only way you want to love me is if you’re not alive to hear me say it back.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean,” snarled Sherlock. 

“Would you say it back?”

“I have already told you that my biggest fear is losing you. What more, John Watson, do you need to hear from me? You give me _nightmares_ I love you so bloody much.”

John’s breath stuttered in the middle of an inhale, never exhaled, because he held it. He held it because he was worried that _this_ was a dream. 

“Sherlock,” he said. 

“What?” Sherlock sounded sullen. 

“Pinch me.”

“Why?”

“So I know this is real.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Sherlock said and then kissed him. 

John made an exclamation of surprise. The kiss was sloppy and clumsy, but it was earnest and heartfelt and John melted underneath it, kissed him back. There was a moment of mutual hesitation, and John could sense both of them deciding, the pivotal moment having been reached. Up to this point it could all be pushed away and ignored, if necessary. And then there was tongue, and Sherlock scrambling to get his T-shirt over his head, and John twisting, rolling, pressing Sherlock under him, Sherlock’s hands scrubbing through his hair, running down his back. And there was no coming back from that, that wasn’t the sort of thing you could just wave away, once you’d snogged your flatmate into your mattress. John pulled briefly away, sitting up long enough to toss his T-shirt away, long enough to vaguely realize that he was straddling Sherlock’s narrow hips, that if he rolled just so—

Sherlock gasped, clawing hard at John’s waist, arching into the friction of the motion, and John thought he’d never seen anything so gorgeous in his life as Sherlock underneath him, out of breath and desperate with arousal. 

“This is madness,” John muttered, even as Sherlock twisted to push at John’s boxers, even as John twisted to help him shed them. “I don’t even— I mean—” He hissed and squeezed his eyes shut as Sherlock closed his hand around him and stroked. 

“How does it feel?” Sherlock bit out the question. 

“Bloody fantastic,” John managed. 

“I want you,” said Sherlock. “I’ve never— But you— I want you. This. Everything.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” said John.

“Tell me—”

“Just, oh my God,” said John, and saw actual bloody stars, and he didn’t care, he really didn’t, that it was something he’d never done before, an orgasm as spectacular as that one deserved fair play. So he didn’t let himself think or even catch his breath before rolling off Sherlock and pulling at his pajama bottoms, maybe more roughly than he should have but Sherlock just breathed out a whoosh of pleasure, made the most delightful whimpers as John wrapped a hand around him, and came almost immediately, head thrown back and hands gripping John’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. 

John collapsed to the mattress next to him, listening to the desperate heaves of both their breaths, and tried to figure out exactly how long that had taken. A ridiculously short amount of time to have changed their lives.

“What a mess,” John breathed, shakily. 

“Is it?”

“Yes. There are tissues by the bed there, grab some.”

Sherlock suddenly started laughing. Hard. Hysterically.

John lifted himself up enough to regard him quizzically. “What?”

“A _literal_ mess,” Sherlock gasped. “I thought you meant a _metaphorical_ mess. But you mean we have _literally_ made a mess.”

John decided he was giddy, leaned over him to grab the tissues and cleaned them both up as well as he could. Sherlock kept giggling, and as soon as John tossed aside the tissues he stretched out over him and kissed him, swallowing his amusement, because he couldn’t resist, he had to taste what Sherlock Holmes tasted like _happy_. 

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” Sherlock asked when the kiss was over. 

John sighed and tucked himself against Sherlock’s side. “I don’t know. I guess I was worried you’d…not reciprocate. And then…then nothing would be the same. Not in a good way. In a terrible way. You’re not the only one worried about losing us.”

“I’m the only one having nightmares about it,” said Sherlock. 

“I bet you won’t have nightmares anymore,” remarked John. 

And Sherlock didn’t. Neither did John.


End file.
